Chapter 65
Sixty-Five
Neal
It was well after midnight when I felt Sorcha shift in bed beside me.
I assumed, for a precious, fleeting moment that she was just getting up to get water, to go use the outhouse.
But a moment later I felt her weight shift on the mattress again, heard her gag, and then heard something wet splatter onto the floor.
“Love?” I mumbled, fumbling for the lantern. “Sorcha?”
“Neal, I don’t feel right,” Sorcha replied.
“Okay.” I finally got the lamp lit. “Okay, let me help you.”
“I thought this part was over,” Sorcha whimpered, vomiting over the edge of the bed again.
“Come here,” I said gently, taking her shoulders and getting a look at her face—sweat streaked, pale, dark circles blossoming under her eyes. Sorcha curled her arms around her belly, and I felt her shoulders shake. She was crying. Hard.
“You stay right here,” I said. “Okay? I’m going to go wake my da and Cavan and Ansel. And we’ll find something for you to take. You’ll be fine. Baby will be fine.”
I pulled her close, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and felt her body jerk as she vomited bile directly into my lap.
“I’m so sorry!” Sorcha yelped, trying to push me away.
“Don’t apologize,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even as fear shot down my spine. Because the bile? Was laced with blood. We were now, properly, in over our heads.
“I ruined the sheets,” Sorcha mumbled, pressing her face into my chest. I felt her fighting to slow her breaths, calm herself down, and avoid throwing up again.
“They’ll bleach,” I said softly. “Now come here. Let’s get you on the floor. I don’t trust you not to fall out of bed while I’m gone.”
She nodded, let me help her, and settled on the ground next to my side of the bed, chamber pot in her lap, clean blanket over her shoulders.
“Stay right here,” I instructed. “I will be back with peppermint oil and creosote in just a minute. Scream if you need me. Okay?”
Sorcha nodded again, tears still streaking down her cheeks.
“We’re going to take care of this,” I promised.
“Ansel, we have a problem!” I pounded on the stairway door, hoping to wake him. Ansel didn’t sleep much but he slept hard. And he was uncharacteristically disheveled when he clambered down from the loft, rubbing his eyes and pulling on trousers.
“What’s wrong?” Ansel asked.
“Sorcha,” I said.
“Assumed that much.” Ansel was already pushing past me and into the kitchen. “What’s happened?”
“Ansel, she’s vomiting blood,” I said.
“And you left her alone?” Ansel demanded, stopping short.
“I had to come get you,” I insisted.
“Go back to her,” Ansel instructed. “Now. I’ll send Cavan down to the village. If we get a telegram out Kadish can be here in a few days.”
“Ansel my wife is vomiting blood. We don’t have days!” I insisted.
“Then I will also have Cavan fetch the midwife and we’ll see what we can bloody well do,” Ansel snapped.
“Where’s my da?” I asked.
“He left for the distillery an hour ago. I’ll send one of the guards to get him,” Ansel said. “I’ll bring medicine. Now go back to her right now, boy!”
Sorcha was worse when I got back to her—shaking, pale, skin clammy and covered in sweat. I didn’t look at the chamber pot in her lap, I didn’t want to know how many times she’d emptied her stomach into it while I was off calling help.
“Ansel’s coming with medicine,” I said, sitting down beside her and letting her curl into my arms. “Cavan’s fetching a midwife from town. And we’re sending word for Kadish. You’ll be okay.”
“Neal, something’s wrong,” Sorcha said, her voice cracked.
“Just breathe slow and try not to throw up again,” I instructed.
“And there’s no way Kadish will even get word for at least another day,” Sorcha sobbed into my chest.
“You’re too warm,” I said softly, the decades of training finally breaking through my haze of fear. “Let’s go outside, alright? Somewhere with fresh air? Cool you down.”
Sorcha didn’t reply but let me help her up and out to the garden.
Creosote didn’t help the fever, neither did yarrow. None of the nausea remedies we tried even took the edge off. Sorcha sat on the garden bench, sweating through her shift beneath the plush down blanket Da had provided, curled up against my chest.
Da had arrived from the distillery at a full sprint and hadn’t left Sorcha’s side since. He was fussing, wiping sweat off her forehead and murmuring about herbal tinctures and getting her some cold sheep milk with ginger root to settle her stomach.
Ansel was pacing.
“It’s got to be some kind of infection,” Ansel muttered under his breath as Sorcha brought up more blood-streaked bile into the chamber pot.
“The Ironmoot who came about the troll infestation seemed ill last week,” Glen put in.
“Creosote should still be breaking the fever though,” Ansel replied.
I didn’t speak, just tucked Sorcha closer. Even in the desert, with relapsing fever, I’d never seen her this sick and still conscious. Terror wrapped around my chest like a vise, making it hard to breathe.
“You’ll be fine,” I whispered into her hair. “You’ll both be okay.”
Sorcha nodded, then whimpered. It felt like hours before Cavan finally returned from the village, but the sky remained dark, dawn still far off.
“Midwife is delivering twins on the other side of the island,” Cavan said as he arrived. “Can’t be here for six hours at least. She says it might be longer.”
I could feel the anger rolling off Ansel in waves. I should be angry. Should feel injustice. Urgency. Something. But my mind was far too fixated on the feel of Sorcha’s breath against my collarbone, her clammy skin under my hands, tracking each and every sign of life in her body.
“I can help.” Irene’s voice jolted me back to attention.
“Oh,” Cavan added, sheepish now, “and Ma said she can help. Maybe. She was real cross but she insisted on coming.”
“You have healing magic we don’t know about?” Ansel demanded.
Irene shook her head. “No, but Finn spent years in the Inner Court, and I’ve still got tinctures he brought home. Magic ones. Made by real Inner Court healers. I think there’s a few that might help.”
“Prove it,” Ansel snarled.
“Healing the girl would prove it,” Irene snapped in reply.
“The girl is your sovereign, and you are not touching her until you’ve shown us what these bloody tinctures can actually do,” Ansel replied sharply.
“I don’t see anyone else in need of healing,” Irene said, “and if we dawdle much more the girl will die.”
I kissed Sorcha’s sweat-soaked forehead, and I saw Da’s hand drift up to grab on to her wrist.
“Nobody’s dying tonight,” he snapped.
And then a gunshot split the still night air.
Cavan yelped. I clutched Sorcha closer even as she broke out of her fevered haze enough to startle.
“What in all the saints was that?” Da exclaimed.
Blood poured from a wound on Ansel’s foot, smoking pistol still in his right hand. Irene’s face drained immediately of color.
“Fix me,” Ansel ground out through his teeth. “Then we’ll talk about letting you touch her.”
Irene nodded, produced a vial of transparent, gold-toned liquid from her apron pocket, and knelt in front of Ansel, careful to avoid the blood pooling on the cobbled patio. She pulled off Ansel’s boot and surveyed the damage, mouth twisting in a grimace at the sight.
“I think something’s broken. And healing magic’s no good on bones,” she said, “but this should close the flesh wound. Will that be sufficient evidence?”
“We’ll see,” I replied bluntly.
“Why are you offering help?” Sorcha asked, barely holding on to alertness.
“You’re my sovereign,” Irene replied. “As Mr. O’Faelen has repeatedly pointed out.”
“Finish your work,” Ansel snapped.
“So fussy.” Irene clucked. “You’d think I shot you.”
The tincture closed the visible wound in Ansel’s foot within mere minutes.
I still glared, unconvinced. But Sorcha was shaking from fever sweat. She’d brought up blood again while the tincture worked. Our options were running perilously thin.
“We’re not gonna get more reassurance than that,” Da muttered as the flesh knit together. “So what do you say, lass? You up for it?”
“How fast can Kadish get here?” Sorcha whispered into my chest.
“Couple days, best case,” Da replied. “He left here three days back. Which means if he’s in Edinburgh? One day for the message to reach and another for him to travel. If he’s farther, it could be a week or more. You never know with Himmelbaum.”
“And how fast could this hurt the baby?” Sorcha asked.
“Sooner than that,” I admitted.
“So we try?” She looked up at me, green eyes wide, glazed, trusting.
“We try,” I agreed. I brushed hair back from her forehead and pressed a kiss between her brows. “I won’t let go of you for a second.”
“So I passed your asinine little test?” Irene asked.
Sorcha nodded.
“Get to it,” Da instructed.
Irene dug in her pockets once more, finally producing three vials of liquid—one was a sickly green, another vibrant pink, and the third clear with tiny particulate droplets of some kind of crystal suspended within.
“And these are?” I asked as Irene uncapped the first and held it out for Sorcha to drink.
“Medicine,” Irene said. “Elven make. From the Inner Court. I’ve got all the notes back buried somewhere at home, but I checked and this is it for antipyretic and to settle her guts. Swear on my husband’s grave, these will help.”
“I don’t think we have any other options, lass,” Da said gently.
“Doesn’t mean I trust this one,” Sorcha muttered.
“You’re positive that healed your foot up right?” I asked Ansel.
Ansel just ran a hand over the newly healed skin, wincing as it jostled the still-broken bones beneath.
“Like I said back in Texas, lad,” Ansel said, “unless you’ve got secret healing magic I don’t know about . . .”
“Take it,” I said, taking the vial from Irene and holding it to Sorcha’s lips.
And so Sorcha drank, one after the other, wincing at the taste.
For a moment, it seemed almost to work. She settled, some of the pained rigidity creeping out of her body, replaced with the laxity of fatigue and dehydration. The band of iron-tight tension in my chest relaxed, and I could take a deep breath.
Then Sorcha stiffened again, tugged on my sleeve. “Neal, I don’t feel right.”
“Stomach again?” I asked softly.
“That typical?” Da demanded of no one in particular.
“Medicine has side effects.” Irene shrugged.
“No, Neal.” Sorcha was getting frantic now, pushing against me, trying to sit up. “Something’s wrong. Tight in my chest. Not my stomach. Not the fever. Something’s wrong!”
And then she screamed through gritted teeth, a desperate, strangled sound. I caught her wrists in one hand and looped another arm behind her back as she scrambled to get up, get away.
But suddenly I felt a rush of something wet and hot in my lap, and Sorcha froze.
“Neal,” she murmured, voice distant now, as though she’d fallen so far under the pain she couldn’t even surface enough to be scared of it, “Neal, I think I’m in labor.”